Margolies joins race to reclaim 13th District

Mar­jor­ie Mar­gol­ies be­lieves too many politi­cians vote for or against a bill based on how it will af­fect their re-elec­tion chances.

“That was nev­er my con­cern,” she said.

Mar­gol­ies rep­res­en­ted the 13th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict in 1993-94, los­ing re-elec­tion in large part be­cause she voted for Pres­id­ent Bill Clin­ton’s eco­nom­ic plan, which raised taxes. Demo­crats ar­gue that the plan led to eco­nom­ic ex­pan­sion.

“I know that vote for the Clin­ton budget made a huge dif­fer­ence. I’m very much will­ing to do it again,” Mar­gol­ies said.

Last week, Mar­gol­ies, 70, an­nounced she was run­ning in next year’s Demo­crat­ic primary in the 13th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict. The in­cum­bent, Demo­crat­ic Rep. Allyson Schwartz, is run­ning for gov­ernor.

A former tele­vi­sion journ­al­ist, Mar­gol­ies worked at Chan­nel 10 and as a cor­res­pond­ent for the Today show.

Now, she is on the fac­ulty of the Fels In­sti­tute of Gov­ern­ment at the Uni­versity of Pennsylvania. She is founder and CEO of Wo­men’s Cam­paign In­ter­na­tion­al, which provides ad­vocacy train­ing for wo­men throughout the world.

In 1992, she was elec­ted to Con­gress in a close race against Re­pub­lic­an Jon Fox.

On Aug. 5, 1993, she voted for the Clin­ton plan, which passed 218-216. It was un­an­im­ously op­posed by Re­pub­lic­ans and 41 Demo­crats.

In the 1994 elec­tions, Re­pub­lic­ans clobbered Demo­crats all across the coun­try, and Fox nar­rowly ous­ted Mar­gol­ies.

In 1998, she was the Demo­crat­ic can­did­ate for lieu­ten­ant gov­ernor. She and Ivan Itkin were crushed by the Re­pub­lic­an tick­et of Gov. Tom Ridge and Lt. Gov. Mark Sch­weiker.

Mar­gol­ies is di­vorced from Ed Mezv­in­sky, a former Iowa con­gress­man. Their son, Marc, is mar­ried to Chelsea Clin­ton.

Bill Clin­ton loves cam­paign­ing on be­half of former polit­ic­al al­lies. Will he ap­pear in the 13th dis­trict or tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials on be­half of the wo­man who helped se­cure pas­sage of his eco­nom­ic plan?

“We are a year away,” Mar­gol­ies said.

When she served in Con­gress, the 13th dis­trict was loc­ated ex­clus­ively in Mont­gomery County.

At present, the dis­trict is about evenly di­vided between Phil­adelphia and Mont­gomery County. Sev­enty per­cent of the North­east is in the 13th dis­trict, which also in­cludes Ol­ney and Felton­ville.

Mar­gol­ies said many of the dis­trict’s needs are the same for people from Bustleton to Bridge­port and Pennypack Park to Pa­per Mill Road.

The pub­lic is an­noyed at the con­ten­tious­ness in Con­gress, she said, and she wants to work in a bi­par­tis­an man­ner. She’ll be­gin dis­cuss­ing spe­cif­ic is­sues in the near fu­ture.

Mar­gol­ies at­ten­ded a re­cent Demo­crat­ic City Com­mit­tee event, and said she was warmly re­ceived. Some of the guests re­called the 1993 vote that made her a one-ter­mer.

“A dozen people came up to me and said, ‘Thank you for that vote,’ ” she said. “It has shelf life. It made a deep im­pres­sion.”

••

Daylin Leach has won the en­dorse­ment of the United Auto­mobile, Aerospace and Ag­ri­cul­tur­al Im­ple­ment Work­ers of Amer­ica.

“Since he was first elec­ted to the Pennsylvania le­gis­lature in 2002, Daylin has demon­strated un­matched sup­port for work­ing fam­il­ies in south­east­ern Pennsylvania,” said Scott Adams, dir­ect­or of UAW Re­gion 9. “In count­less in­stances, he has led the fight in Har­ris­burg to pro­tect the middle class and pre­serve work­ers’ rights, while spur­ring eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and cre­at­ing more jobs. Our mem­bers know that he will bring the same fight to Wash­ing­ton that he’s known for in Har­ris­burg.”

••

Allyson Schwartz has cri­ti­cized Gov. Tom Corbett for what she sees as his fail­ure to fix Pennsylvania’s roads, bridges and in­fra­struc­ture.

Schwartz cited a sur­vey by TRIP, a trans­port­a­tion re­search group, that showed Pennsylvania has 5,540 bridges that are struc­tur­ally de­fi­cient. The sur­vey showed that 37 per­cent of Pennsylvania roads are in poor or me­diocre con­di­tion.

“Gov. Corbett’s fail­ure to main­tain the safety of Pennsylvania’s bridges and high­ways is det­ri­ment­al to Pennsylvania’s eco­nom­ic growth and a threat to the safety of our cit­izens. It is time for the gov­ernor to re­cog­nize the need for ac­tion,” Schwartz said.

••

John Hanger, an­oth­er Demo­crat­ic can­did­ate for gov­ernor, has out­lined an eight-point job plan.

The fund­ing comes from ac­cept­ing Medi­caid ex­pan­sion; tax­ing nat­ur­al gas drilling, smoke­less to­bacco and ci­gars; and clos­ing the “Delaware loop­hole,” which al­lows Pennsylvania com­pan­ies to trans­fer money from sub­si­di­ar­ies to Delaware, which has no cor­por­ate taxes.

In ad­di­tion, Hanger would de­fund poorly per­form­ing charter schools, sav­ing more than $931 mil­lion. And he would place man­age­ment of the Turn­pike Com­mis­sion with­in PennDOT.

Hanger, a former state Pub­lic Util­ity Com­mis­sion mem­ber and sec­ret­ary of the state De­part­ment of En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion, said he im­ple­men­ted policies in those roles that cre­ated jobs and at­trac­ted busi­nesses to Pennsylvania.